Review: Summer is in full swing and mere days after the 41st anniversary of Jaws, another big shark movie is making its way to your cinematic shores. Long regulated to schlocky SyFy Channel movies and its own week of programming on the Discovery Channel in late June, sharks just don’t get the kind of love they deserve. Here’s a perfect predator that we can easily stay away from if we didn’t love the ocean waters so much…but again and again we venture underwater with the threat of winding up a tasty snack for a mammoth fish.

As another Sharknado looms large on the horizon and with memories of the fun but ultimately forgettable shark flicks The Reef and Bait 3D on the brain, I had high hopes that The Shallows would deliver. It’s first trailer presented a nice tease while subsequent marketing materials disappointingly spilled some of the secrets that lurked beneath the surface. Feeling like I’d seen the whole movie in its final 2 ½ minute trailer I went into the screening less enthused but still curious.

The good news is that The Shallows is a competent, well-made, suspenseful thriller…as long as no one is talking. Which leads to the bad news. The script from Anthony Jaswinski has a solid set-up but so much awkward exposition that it takes a bigger bite out of our enjoyment than a great white shark ever could. For once, backstories don’t really matter at all to the forward motion of the plot but still Jaswinski feels the need to add extra characters and tangents that, had they been excised, would have left the film 10 minutes shorter and tighter overall.

But let’s party down a bit that the production values are high enough that not only do we get gorgeous underwater photography (for those of us remaining landlocked this summer) but an exceedingly believable gigantic swimming nemesis intent on chomping down on a nubile surfer chick. Said chick is Nancy (Blake Lively, Savages) and she’s come to a secluded beach in Tijuana Mexico as a tribute to her late mother who first visited the same beach while pregnant with her. Alone save for two local guys catching waves, she takes the day to remember her mom, think about her future, and surf the dangerous waters.

As the guys depart for the day, Nancy takes one last ride and that’s where her trouble starts and your nail-biting will commence. Getting too close to a whale carcass floating nearby, Nancy is struck by a Great White shark that doesn’t like anyone messing with his mealtime. Stranded on a rock that eventually will be submerged as the tide comes in, Nancy has to fight to stay afloat and out of the jaws of a very intelligent super predator.

Lively is the entire movie and the actress is engaging and engaged with the material, selling the stilted dialogue as best she can and doing it in bikini bottoms and half a wet-suit. Stuck without any weapons 200 yards from shore, she becomes incredibly resourceful as she plots her way off the rock while avoiding several shark attacks that get bolder with each passing hour. At 87 minutes, the film somehow manages to get more people into the water to become shark bait but sags ever so slightly whenever the shark’s presence isn’t felt.

When the shark is onscreen the suspense is well maintained by director Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop) who elicits some genuine surprise jolts when Lively’s fishy co-star swims into frame. A tense final act leads to a finale that, I must admit, was supremely satisfying and well-earned. An epilogue hastily filmed less than two months ago feels unnecessary and doesn’t send you out on the thrilling high note it could have had it called it quits at the true climax of the film.

On the way out of the screening my movie-going companion jokingly asked me if I thought The Shallows was better than Jaws. I didn’t dignify that with a response then, nor will I here…but I can easily recommend The Shallows for the shark-loving film goer.